carora, nor a Dacotah; you are a pale face.' Did the bird
lie!"

The old woman did not answer.

"_Ma mere_," said Verty, tenderly taking the old woman's hand and
sitting at her feet, "the Great Spirit has made me honest and open--I
cannot conceal anything. I cannot pry and search. I might find out
this from some other person--who knows? But I will not try. Come!
speak with a straight tongue. Am I the son of a brave; am I a
Delaware; or am I what my face makes me out--a Long-knife?"

"Ough! ough! ough!" groaned the old woman; "he wants to go, away from
the nest where he was warmed, and nursed, and brought up. The Great
Spirit has put evil into his heart--it is cold."

"No, no," said Verty, earnestly--"my heart is red, not white; every
drop of my life-blood is yours, _ma mere_; you have loved me,
cherished me: when my muscles were soft and hot with fever, you laid
my head upon your bosom, and rocked me to sleep as softly as the
topmost bough of the oak rocks the oriole; you loved me always. My
heart shall run out of my breast and soak the ground, before it turns
white; yet, I love you, and you love me. But, _ma mere_, I have grown
well nigh to manhood; the bird's song is changed, and the dove has
flown to me--the dove yonder at Apple Orchard--"

"Ough!" groaned the old woman, rocking to and fro; "she is black! She
has made you bad!"

"No, no! she is white--she is good. She told me about the Great
Spirit, and makes me pure."

"Ough! ough!"

"She is as pure as the bow in the cloud," continued Verty; "and I
did not mean that the dove was the bird who whispered, that I was no
Delaware. No--my own heart says, 'know--find out.'"

"And why should the heart say 'know?'" said the old woman, still
rocking about, and looking at Verty with anxious affection. "Why
should my son seek to find?"

"Because the winds are changed and sing new songs; the leaves whisper,
as I pass, with a new voice; and even the clouds are not what they
were to me when I ran after the shadows floating along the hills, and
across the hollows. I have changed, _ma mere_, and the streams talk no
more with the same tongue. I hear the flags and water-lilies muttering
as I pass, and the world opens on me with a new, strange light. They
talked to me once; now they laugh at me as I pass. Hear the trees,
yonder! Don't you hear them? They are saying, 'The Delaware paleface!
look at him! look at him!'"

And crouching, with dreamy eyes, Verty for a moment l